You think your dreams are the same as mine
by swatkat
Summary: Henry looks around and then lowers his voice, like he's about to say something he shouldn't. "Do you believe in magic, Deputy Swan?" "What, like Harry Potter?" "I think my grandmother's a witch," Henry says, and Emma, well, Emma can't help herself. Emma laughs. [Alternate curse AU, Swan Queen]


One-shot. For a prompt from the previous SQ week: 'Alternate Curse'. If you spot a Disney reference, it probably is a Disney reference.

I do not make money off this.

Feedback is adored. 3

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1

Emma's a runner.

Is, always has been. Mary Margaret likes to joke about training for the Olympics and Emma goes along with it, snarks right back but really, it's just habit. A kind of an itch that has her out of bed at five most mornings. Unless Graham's been a dick and saddled her with the graveyard shift two nights in a row, that is.

At dawn, the air's fresh and crisp, blessed, blessed silence wrapping the town in its arms. Emma likes Storybrooke like this. _Only like this_ , says the stupid voice inside her head and Emma runs faster, because running shuts it up, running calms it down until there's nothing but the sound of heartbeats and feet hitting the pavement.

She runs down Main and past the diner, shutters still down and none of the clatter of cutlery and the sound of patrons' voices. The fire station and the Town Hall. Down to the beach, where she pauses to stretch and breathe.

Some mornings, Killian will show up with his boat and regale her with tales of his adventures in the sea.

"Why Storybrooke?" Emma asks him, often, and he responds with a shrug and an innuendo or three. He doesn't have answers, Emma knows by now, just like every other person in this sleepy little town where time stands still. Nobody comes and nobody goes, and they all act like they're _happy_.

She imagines a boat of her own, sometimes, and an entire ocean to lose herself in.

Some mornings she runs all the way to the town line, and imagines running far, far away and never looking back.

And on some mornings she runs past the big white house on Mifflin Street and acts like her heart isn't racing, nope, acts like it's routine, _just routine_. Acts like she isn't thinking of the boy who lives there and looks at her, always, like she has answers to all the questions he'll never ask. The boy and his mother and her dark, dark eyes.

If she says that to herself enough times, she might even start believing it.

It's what they do in Storybrooke, after all. Nothing ever happens.

2.

Emma dreams—

—of flying, the night sky a dark canopy lit up with stars.

"This is very inappropriate," Regina says, but she's smiling, smiling. She's brighter than the stars and the moon combined.

"Not much for propriety," Emma smiles back. "In case you haven't noticed, Your Highness."

She stole the magic carpet from under the old king's nose and has now stolen away his queen with a wink and a smile. Emma's not much for propriety, no, and she knows Regina enough to know she doesn't care.

"Oh, I _have_ ," Regina says, her voice low. A gentle palm slides down Emma's forearm. Fingers reaching, tangling with her own. "The King will be _very_ displeased that you stole his precious carpet. It was a gift from the Grand Vizier of Agrabah." Regina's thumb draws circles on her palm and Emma cannot help but shiver.

Regina's more precious than any treasure in that fool's coffers, and Regina belongs to no one, no one at all. Sometimes—on idle evenings, after a drink or two—Emma thinks she might belong _with_ her, though. Someday she might even be brave enough to tell her that.

She snakes an arm around Regina's waist and pulls her even closer, relishing the slightest hitch in Regina's breath.

"I'm counting on it," Emma whispers in her ear, and Regina smiles and smiles, radiant as a summer's day.

Beneath them, the forest is still and endless.

3.

Thursday mornings are for meetings with the Mayor's department.

Graham, being a _dick_ , mumbles excuses every damn week and sends forth his hapless Deputy to deal with Actual Devil Boss Lady, who always looks at Emma like there's a nasty smell under her nose. And Emma _goes_ , Emma goes and grits her teeth through every meeting because some days—

Some days the Mayor's daughter is by her side, armed with a sneer and her notepad and her pen. She holds herself like a queen and looks down at Emma like she's a particularly annoying unwashed peasant. Like there'll be another fiery headline in the _Mirror_ about the _law and order situation in Storybrooke_ , and _police incompetence_. And Emma's heart skips a beat regardless, because she doesn't know how not to pine.

Some days their eyes will meet and Emma swears she sees a flicker of… _something_. A hint of a fire Emma _knows_.

It burns and burns and Emma's a moth on her last sojourn.

4.

Sometimes she remembers snatches of conversation that are—

("Run away with me."

"And go _where_? In the woods, with Maid Marian and her Merry Men while waiting for the King's guards to capture us?"

"We could run away to Agrabah. Or to the Middle Kingdom. Or to another realm if that's what you want. We'll make it happen."

"And my mother?"

"It could be a realm without magic. I'm sure there are some like that."

"Emma, I—")

—absurd and impossible and maybe she's just losing her mind with all this wanting.

5.

The streets of Misthaven are narrow and crowded, and swarming with King Leopold's guards. _Not_ the best location for a wanted thief to show her face, if only to indulge in some harmless trading.

Emma counts on it. Shows up every other week to entertain herself, and, on occasion, to buy things that catch her fancy—the green hooded cloak that's synonymous with Marian now, a pair of daggers encrusted with gems that match wolf-girl Ruby's eyes.

One time it ended with her in the King's dungeons for a week before a daring rescue by Maid Marian and her men.

"You know you don't _have_ to steal food from the market anymore, right?" Marian had said, shaking her head. "You're one of us now."

"But it keeps me on my toes," Emma had protested.

"Show off," Marian said lightly, and had not pressed further.

Which is just as well, because Emma isn't certain she's ready to share _that_ treasure yet: the apple cart she'll spot on some lucky days, and a pair of warm, brown eyes.

The slight, teasing smile that she'll get on some days. "Why, if it isn't Lady Swan."

"Only a thief, ma'am," Emma will shrug.

"Here to steal my apples again?"

"I was hoping to steal something more valuable."

And sometimes their eyes will meet and Emma's fool heart will be lighter than her feet.

Ships have been launched for eyes like that. Or so she's heard in the ballads Will sings sometimes. Emma isn't the sentimental sort.

Her thief's heart longs only for treasures not her own, and she thinks she might have stumbled into the most precious one of them all.

6.

The Mayor's grandson is an odd little boy. About eleven, a mop of brown hair and dark, serious eyes like his mother's. Always with his nose in some book or the other.

Emma runs into him at Granny's, sitting in a booth all by himself and scribbling away in a notebook. His tongue is sticking out a little bit. His milkshake lies forgotten in front him on the table. He smiles when he looks up and spots Emma, bright and wide. "Hey, Deputy Swan!"

"Hey, Henry," Emma says. "You here on your own?"

"I'm supposed to be here until my mom picks me up. Grandma called her in for an emergency meeting," Henry says. "So Granny is watching me."

Emma doesn't really like kids, but there's something about this boy.

"Mind if I join you?" she says, and gets an eager nod in response.

They sit in amicable silence for a while. Henry scribbles and scribbles while Emma sips on her coffee and gets her daily dose of local law enforcement-bashing, courtesy the _Storybrooke Mirror_ and, well, Henry's mom. Figures the kid's big on reading all the time. His mom's certainly got a way with words.

"Is that your homework, kiddo?" Emma says, eyeing Henry's notebook. Whatever he's doing, it looks way too complicated for a kid's homework.

"I'm working on a project," he tells her, with all the self-importance of an eleven year old. It's kind of adorable. What can she say? There's something about this boy.

"What sort of a project?" Emma says, equally serious.

Henry looks around and then lowers his voice, like he's about to say something he shouldn't. "Do you believe in magic, Deputy Swan?"

"What, like Harry Potter?"

"I think my grandmother's a witch," Henry says, and Emma, well, Emma can't help herself. Emma laughs.

7.

So she's a wanted thief, and _fine_ , _all right_ , she may have stolen a couple of things from the jackass at the pawnshop, but sending a legion of guards after her is _hardly_ reasonable, Emma thinks, as she elbows a beefy guard in the stomach and dodges past a shoe someone's lodged at her from their window.

There's another couple of guards closing in on her and the friendly neighborhood cabbage merchant right in front.

Emma leaps, one foot on the cabbage cart and then another as the flimsy cart topples and the vegetables fly in every direction. She doesn't pause to look behind as the cabbage merchant howls, "My cabbages! You're gonna pay for this!" She runs.

"Stop! Thief!" Another set of voices—from the left, great, _more_ guards, and Emma's reaching for a rope and swinging past their heads, a sword narrowly missing her feet. Through the nearest window, pausing only a moment to bow and wink at the lady of the household, and out of another, onto the window ledge.

"Thief!" More voices. Emma jumps from one ledge to another, sidestepping the occasional (rude!) pail of water—or worse, rotten leftovers—flung in her general direction.

It is, one can say, somewhat justifiable that she doesn't quite manage to spot the sleeping cat in her path.

She realizes this _after_ stepping on something soft and losing her balance in the process, holding on to a clothesline in the nick of time—but not before earning herself a loud hiss and a sharp swipe on her calf.

The clothesline isn't meant for Emma's weight, of course. It protests vigorously and then snaps, leaving Emma with barely enough time to scream "Incoming!" before she's falling, falling, straight onto a neatly-arranged bushel of apples.

It's possible she blacks out for a moment. It's possible she dies and goes to heaven because when she opens her eyes it's to gaze upon the loveliest countenance, a pair of warm brown eyes and a furrowed brow, covered in part by a grey cloak. Emma's sore all over and she's lying on a bed of apples and all she can do is look into those eyes and say, "Hi," flashing what is probably a goofy, lopsided smile.

And the vision before her blinks and says—

—"Taxpayers' dollars at work, I see," lips upturned in a familiar smirk.

Emma sits up so quickly she nearly upturns the creaky office chair. Her mouth feels dry. Her heart beats faster and faster and all she can see is that image, and this woman in front of her who is and isn't her. Is she awake or asleep?

"I was dreaming," she says.

And she must sound entirely out of it, because Regina says, "Are you all right, Miss Swan?", sounding almost concerned.

"I was dreaming of this weird place. And running, I guess." _I was dreaming of you_ , she wants to say but the words catch in her throat. "I, uh, have these really vivid dreams sometimes," she tells her instead.

Regina looks at her like she wants to say something.


End file.
